IO Files
Memorandum of Conversation, by Edward P. Maffitt of the United States Mission at the United Nations
US/S/1742
Subject: The Syrian-Israeli Dispute
| Participants: | Major General William E. Riley, Chief of Staff, Truce Supervision Organization |
| Edward P. Maffitt, US Mission |
Last Monday, the 16th, I visited General Riley in the St. Albans Naval Hospital. I took the occasion to inform him that the State Department had finally acceded to General Cates’ insistent request that Riley be returned to active Marine Corps duty. We then discussed matters connected with the present Syrian-Israeli dispute.
Riley said Eban and Rafael had come to see him the afternoon of their visit to this office (April 13th)1 and had appeared somewhat unsettled. Riley was inclined to attribute this to their talk with us and something Dr. Bunche had said to them, and thought that the combination of these incidents and the conversation that had ensued between Riley and themselves might have had something to do with the tone Foreign Minister Sharett took in his press conference on April 15. Bunche had said that he would not like to give testimony at the Council table, but if he did, would not support the Israelis’ claim that the Demilitarized Zone is Israeli territory. Riley himself had told Eban that he disagreed with Israel’s way of proceeding in the Huleh district and its claim that it had the right to police the Demilitarized Zone. He also had told Eban that he would not recommend the release of Colonel Bossavy because it was the Israeli Delegate Ramati who was requesting it. He had assured Eban that Ramati caused more trouble than the rest of the Israeli Delegates together and had added that for a year he, Riley, had been requesting Ramati’s replacement.
At this point General Riley said it seemed to him that the Israelis were trying unilaterally to revise the Armistice Agreement.
[Page 647]General Riley then mentioned an element that I think will be most important in the Security Council discussion of the case. He referred to an explanatory note2 Dr. Bunche had sent the parties in transmitting them his draft of Article V of the Armistice Agreement. Among other things, this note said that “Civilian administration, including policing, will be on a local basis without raising the questions of administration, jurisdiction, citizenship and sovereignty.” I think it also affirms the competence of the Chairman of the MAC which would be created by the Armistice Agreement, in matters concerning the administration and policing of the Demilitarized Zone. Riley said that both parties to the Syrian-Israeli Armistice Conference had agreed that the explanatory note should be recorded in the Summary Records of the Conference’s meetings and that, once it had been so recorded, it would be used as an authentic commentary should any difficulty arise in the interpretation of the Armistice Agreement. The Summary Records of all the Conference meetings were transmitted by Mr. Bigier to the Chief of Staff under covering letter of July 26th and Riley believed that both parties and Dr. Bunche as well as himself had complete sets.
I said I thought these Summary Records, including the explanatory note, should be at the disposal of the Council and General Riley thought that if he should be invited to the table to answer questions, he could bring them to the attention of the Council in reply to an appropriate question.
In reply to my inquiry whether the Chairman’s jurisdiction in the Demilitarized Zone had been called into question prior to the present incidents, Riley said it had not. In fact he recalled that in August of 1949 he had caused the Israelis to remove a cluster of houses they had set up over-night near Ein Gev and that before the Israelis removed them to another place they had sought and obtained the Chairman’s permission to place them in the new location.
General Riley also recalled that we might find several cases recorded in the Summary Records of the MAC where the Chairman, as agent for the Palestine Arabs, had received complaints against the actions of Israeli police in the Demilitarized Zone.